Inappropriate by Vi Keeland
Chapter 34
Grant
Where the hell am I?
I lifted my head, and it felt like some of the skin on my cheek stayed on the thick plastic I’d been sleeping on. I rose up to an elbow and looked around. I was in some sort of a waiting room, and it looked industrial. But I had no fucking clue where I was or how the hell I’d gotten here.
“You’re at Patton State Hospital,” a deep voice said from nearby.
Patton.What the fuck was I doing anywhere near this damn place? I followed the direction of the sound and found a well-dressed man sitting a few chairs away. He closed what looked like a chart he’d been working on and folded his hands on his lap. “I’m Dr. Booth.”
The name rang a bell, but it took me a second to figure out why over the pounding in my head. I sat up and realized for the first time that I’d been sprawled out over a few folding chairs with plastic-covered, cushioned bottoms.
My hand reached for the side of my head once I was upright. “Did I get hurt?”
“Not that I’m aware of, other than what I suspect might be a little alcohol poisoning from overconsumption.”
Fuck. My head is really killing me.And what the hell was I doing at Patton? “Do you know how I got here?”
“The guard asked you that when you came in. You told him Uber.”
I went to nod, but raising my head and lowering it hurt too fucking much. I racked my brain, trying to remember the events of last night. I remembered being at a bar, and I remembered some guy helping me to a car after he locked the door. Joe? Maybe his name was Joe. Yeah, that was it. He was the bartender, and I’d walked out with him at closing time. Damn…that means I was drinking until four in the morning. No wonder I don’t remember shit.
“Did we meet earlier?” I asked Dr. Booth.
He smiled. “No. This is the first time we’ve met. You came in about five thirty this morning and asked to see one of my patients. All visits require the inmate’s psychiatrist’s approval. The guards knew you were drunk and turned you away. But they called me to let me know what had happened, and I asked them to let you sleep it off in the waiting room, at least until visiting hours start at noon. The hospital allows visitors twenty-four hours a day, but the correctional facility ward follows state prison protocol when it comes to letting people in.”
“What time is it?”
He looked at his watch. “Ten fifteen.”
I raked a hand through my hair. Even touching the strands hurt. “I take it you’re Lily’s doctor?”
He nodded. “I am. Lily tried to get you to come see her for the first four years of her admission here. You never would respond to any of my messages or her letters. So I was curious what made you come by today. But by the time I got here, you were out cold.”
“You’ve been sitting there for four hours waiting for me to wake up?”
He smiled. “No. When I saw your condition, I made my morning rounds and told the guard to page me if you woke up. I came back after I finished to work on some of my charts.” He pointed his eyes down to a stack of thick manila folders on the chair next to him.
“Why?”
“Why what? Why did I ask the guards to let you sleep it off, or why am I here working on my charts?”
I shook my head. “All of it.”
“Well, like I said, I was curious about you. And Lily is still my patient. She’s made great progress over the years, but I often learn things from family members that help me in treatment. When she was first admitted, she signed a release that all of her medical information could be discussed with you. Every year we go over her permissions on file. It’s been seven years, and she still hasn’t withdrawn permission for me to discuss her health with you. So I’m legally free to discuss her case. I thought it also might be helpful for me to understand why it was you were here to see her today.”
“When she was first admitted? She wasn’t admitted to the hospital, Doc. She was sentenced—to twenty-five damn years. And you people keep her here to do easy time. She deserves to be locked in a cell, just like all the other murderers.”
“I see. Did you come today to speak to her?”
I cleared my throat. My mouth was so damn dry. “No. I have no desire to see her. Or help her. I don’t know what the hell I was thinking last night, or this morning—whenever I showed up. But it was a mistake.”
Dr. Booth examined my face and nodded. “I understand. But perhaps you and I could still talk.” He stood. “How do you take your coffee? Let me at least give you some caffeine and Tylenol. It looks like you could use both.”
The thought of standing made me feel nauseous, much less jumping in a cab and taking the hour-and-a-half ride back home. I rubbed the back of my neck. “Yeah. Alright. I could use some coffee before I get out of here. Black, please.”
The doc disappeared and came back a few minutes later with two Styrofoam cups and a small packet of Tylenol.
“Thank you.”
He took a seat across from me and stayed quiet, watching me.
“I don’t normally do this. Haven’t tied one on like that since college.”
Dr. Booth nodded. “Did something happen that set you off? Drinking and showing up here, I mean?”
“Nothing that has to do with Lily.” Or everything that has to do with my ex-wife.
“We can talk about whatever you like. It doesn’t have to be about Lily.”
I scoffed. “No, but I’m sure you’d psychoanalyze anything I say to relate it back to her. Isn’t that what shrinks do? Find a cause for everything that happens so there’s someone or something to blame other than their patient? A man murders another man while robbing him—his father molested him, so it’s his father’s fault. Not the crack he smoked an hour before because he’s an addict. A woman kills her own child—she shouldn’t be blamed because she’s depressed. We’re all fucking depressed at some point in our lives, Doc.”
The doc sipped his coffee. “I wasn’t planning on psychoanalyzing you. I figured if you were here, you could use someone to talk to. I’m not your doctor, but I’m a man, and you’re a fellow man who seems in need. That’s all.”
Well, now I felt like shit. I raked a hand through my hair. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine. Trust me, I don’t get offended easily. Hazard of the career. Most people who show up at my door aren’t there because they want to be. Either the court or their family forced their hand. It’s not uncommon for me to be told to fuck off because I’m an asshole in the first fifteen minutes of a session.”
I smiled. “I’m usually good at holding my tongue for the first half hour of a meeting.”
Dr. Booth smiled back. “May I ask you a personal question?”
I shrugged. “Go for it. It doesn’t mean I have to answer.”
He shook his head. “No, it doesn’t. Are you married?”
“No.”
“In a relationship?”
I thought of Ireland. I was. Or am I? I don’t fucking know. “I’ve been seeing someone, yes.”
“Are you happy?”
Another loaded question I couldn’t answer easily. “It’s hard to be happy when you’ve lost a child. But, yeah…Ireland makes me happy.” I shook my head. “For the first time in seven damn years.”
Doc was quiet for a long time again. “Is it possible you came today because you want forgiveness so you can move on?”
I felt the veins in my neck pulse with anger. “Lily doesn’t deserve forgiveness.”
Dr. Booth caught my eyes. “I wasn’t referring to Lily. Forgiveness is something you have to find within yourself. No one can give that to you. Yes, I believe your ex-wife suffers from bipolar disorder that caused her behavior to be manic, and that, coupled with severe postpartum depression, made her do something unthinkable, but you don’t need to agree with me in order to find forgiveness. Forgiveness doesn’t excuse Lily’s behavior. Forgiveness allows that behavior to not destroy your heart anymore.”
I tasted salt in the back of my mouth. I’d cried enough in the last seven years; I wasn’t about to sit in the same building my ex-wife breathed in and shed any more tears. I cleared my throat, hoping to swallow my emotions.
“I know you mean well, Doc. And I appreciate it. I really do… But Lily doesn’t deserve forgiveness.” I shook my head. “I should really get going. Thanks for the coffee and Tylenol.”
I stood and extended my hand to Dr. Booth. When he clasped mine, he again looked into my eyes. “I don’t think you want to forgive Lily. I think you want to forgive yourself. You did nothing wrong, Grant. Give yourself that forgiveness and move on. Sometimes people don’t allow themselves to forgive because they’re afraid they’ll forget—forgive and forget. But you’ll never forget Leilani. You just need to realize there’s room in your heart for more than one person again.”
“Tell her to stop writing the letters, Doc.”
